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Law School: It’s Shondalicious

New. From ABC. It’s How to get away with murder!!!

I know! It’s like a documentary.

It’s no biggie that people see the inside of the onion for law students and criminal defense lawyers, because everybody already knows we’re the coolest cats around. But giving away the true inner secrets of the Academy? There’s going to be some ‘splaining to do.

Shonda Rhimes, who has already done society the mitzvah of revealing that hospitals are run by 22-year-olds who create brilliant innovations when their deepest feelings don’t get in the way, and that the oval office desk is the perfect height for oral sex, proving that conspiracy theorists are right about the government all along (okay, she may have something on this one), pulls back the curtain on law schools, criminal law and scholars. Picture your fav lawprof’s face (or other part of their anatomy, if you’re so inclined), and ponder the possibilities.

What could possibly go wrong?

For those who tend not to enjoy a busman’s holiday when watching the boob tube, you might find it worth your while to watch an episode or two of this new show, because you know that someone is going to ask you at a cocktail party if that’s what it’s really like. To which you will no doubt respond, “duh, yeah.”

And then there are the new voir dire questions, following up on the CSI effect.

But the group most affected by this new show won’t be lawyers, or even law students, but professors. Up to now, the closest they’ve come to cool is Kingsfield, and he somehow managed to make it through his career without ever having sex with a student. Kingsfield was not cool. Not even a little bit.

The irony may well be the sudden boost in interest by law students to become scholar/gladiators (a word, by the way, which is currently used to describe Shondaland’s Scandal fans, but clearly is more appropriate here), while law schools are doing their best to shed themselves of lawprofs. Oh, the competition will be steep, just as it was when Gidget learned that Moon Doggie was really an airline pilot.

On the downside, the entire WaPo Conspiracy gang will have to go out shopping for new, fashionable clothing, because those old tweed jackets with the leather patches on the elbows just won’t cut it when they walk the red carpet with Kim Kardashian. Bet they never thought they would be the center of attention at Hollywood parties.

Yup, Shonda Rhimes will change everything, about law students, criminal defense lawyers and mostly, law professors. Does anybody else pine for the days of Judd for the Defense?

Studies have shown that shed lawprofs make up an inordinate percentage of serial killers and sex addicts. And now we know why — they can not help themselves. It is in their nature . . . You know, DNA and all that jazz . . .

Sigh. Over here in the staid College of Agriculture we’re still stuck in the Perry Mason era, or maybe The Trials of O’Brien for the more adventurous, when we’re not watching The Real McCoys. (Walter Brennan still cracks us up.) If only we had known that we could have been across campus at the law school screwing both the students and the justice system in a bizarre menage a trois.

But they made the buildings look so darned academic from the outside, how could we have known what was going on within? Unfortunately, it’s too late for a career change for most of us, though I suppose most of our students will be transferring out now and we’ll all be forced into early retirement when the administration shuts down our college. Damn you, Shonda!

My next door neighbor, a guy named Weir, is a professor emeritus from Cornell who tells a very different story about the Ag school. It has a lot to do with the appropriate use of the word “horticulture.” Propriety prevents me from repeating it here. He makes ag school sound like a wild and crazy place. It may be the next hit show for Shondaland.

Oh, sure, somebody alllways has to bring up Cornell. Shonda probably could make something out of the antics of those guys, but it couldn’t possibly be as representative as her documentary on law schools. Place is a pressure cooker! They believe they can lead a horticulture AND make her think.

I’m shocked! SHOCKED I tell you and not in an electric boogaloo type of way either.

I mean all this time I thought as a down under guy looking up in awe at the big old USA that ‘merican lawyerin was all about Boston Legal, LA Law, Perry Mason and what I tried not to cringe at on Judge Judy.

But of course they do. Not that they’re admitted to practice, or have ever seen the inside of a courtroom, but on CNN, they know everything about the practice of law. And if it’s on TV, it must be true.

Hey now, my professors who happened to have a 30 year practice and only taught night classes are clearly lower ranked than the ones who graduated from HYS, clerked for a year and now teach. I mean they got fancy fellowships and everything. And it’s not like those who came in from practicing could teach me anything.

I mean my Crim Pro professor was never at a white shoe firm or clerked! He just happens to have been practicing for 50 years and had multiple cases in the text book that he personally worked on. Clearly having someone whose never tried a state case should be teaching a state evidence code.

I mean worst off all, I had one professor whose only able to teach classes after 7 and doesn’t publish papers! He should be ashamed and go cry in his Tesla.

I heard in Episode 4 she writes a bill proposal that elevates first, second and third degree butthurt to felony murder. If the butthurt was caused by misogyny then it’s considered an aggravating factor. Some “blogger in NY” ridicules her at which point she forms a cabal with everyone that he’s pissed off and they leave him for dead, with a first aid kit just inches from his dying fingers and frame some guy who frequents TSA lines. She then assigns her students to – well, I dont’ want to spoil it.

Scott H. Greenfield

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